Page 42 of My Merry Mistake
Eloise reaches over me and smacks Poppy, but also smacks me at the same time.
“Okay,” I move to sit up again, “I’m not about to be in the middle of?—
“Tell us about Justin.” Poppy gently puts a hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down.
“Yeah, and work can wait,” Eloise says. “Do you ever sleep?”
“I think I could sleep right now,” I say, laying my head back on the pillow.
For a brief moment, I flash back to a memory: the three of us, up late. We’remaybemiddle school age, laying on an air mattress just like we are now. Eloise wanted an air mattress because she thought it would be like a bounce house, and the first night we got it, we lay shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the ceiling where we had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars.
It was us three. Always us three. Poppy and Eloise, being their goofy selves, and me, the center, the glue, holding everything together.
“Afteryou tell us about this guy,” Poppy says, snapping me out of the memory. “We really are excited for you. It was just, you know, that whole display out there threw us for a loop.”
“I don’t know who this Justin guy is,” Eloise says, “but does he look at you likethat?”
“Finn is a flirt,” I say, a bit exasperated. “And he’s too young.”
“He’s only like three years younger than you,” Poppy says.
“Four.”
“Three-and-a-half,” she corrects me, squeezing my arm. “And that’s nothing. It doesn’t matter at all.”
“He’s a really good guy,” Eloise says.
“Guys. Stop. You know how I feel about hockey players,” I say.
“Dallas and Gray haven’t changed your mind?” Poppy asks.
I sigh. “Justin is more . . . my type.”
“Boring?” Eloise snorts.
“Smart, successful, and self-made,” I say. “We have the same priorities. We want the same things. He . . . gets me.”
My eyelids are heavy as my sisters discuss the “priorities” that should matter, and then they begin to debate the kind of guy they each think I need.
It all starts to fade into the background until everything goes quiet, and soon I don’t hear anything at all.
Chapter Eleven
Raya
Voices swim in and out.
“Do we wake her?”
“She looks so peaceful.”
“A little less scary like this, for sure.”
“She can’t drive home if she’s this tired.”
“She needs to take a day off. A sick day. A mental health day. Something.”
I crack open my eyes and squint.
